CPA - The Guardian

Nurses across the Western Sydney Area Health Service (WSAHS) will hold midday rallies at seven hospitals tomorrow, March 18, at 12 noon, to highlight the fact that nurse numbers at WSAHS hospitals and community health services have dropped to unsafe levels.

NSW Nurses Association members protesting outside Sydney parliament, Hiroshima Day 2003.

The actions will be at Lithgow, Katoomba, Penrith, Mount Druitt, Blacktown and Westmead.

Concerned members of the community are invited to join the rally in their area. Off duty nurses from Portland, Springwood and Cumberland hospitals and all Western Sydney community health services will join the rallies in their area.

NSW Nurses Association (NSWNA) general secretary, Brett Holmes, said Western Sydney AHS nurses have had it and their frustration with the lack of nurse recruitment and cuts to beds and services has boiled over.

“For example, at Lithgow the emergency department (ED) is short staffed and up to half of the hospital’s ward beds are closed due to a failure to recruit nurses to fill vacancies. The WSAHS is also failing to recruit nurse vacancies at Katoomba Hospital.

“Nepean Hospital at Penrith is almost on life support itself. There are 20 full-time-equivalent (FTE) positions unfilled in the maternity section alone. Across maternity the next roster has over 230 shifts vacant and I am advised the following roster in April will be worse. This includes vacancies in the clinic, delivery suite, ante-natal and post-natal sections.”

Mr Holmes said that there are also 14.5 vacancies in the Emergency Department and despite this shortage the Emergency Department nurses were being called on to cover shortages on other wards. Most other units also have significant vacancies, yet no recruitment advertising is being done outside the WSAHS.

The emergency departments at Mount Druitt-Blacktown are down 13 FTE nurses, including their vital clinical-leadership positions of Clinical Nurse Consultant and Clinical Nurse Educator.

“The story is the same at all other hospitals including Westmead and Auburn.

“I am also advised that 10 mental health beds have been closed across the WSAHS. This is ridiculous as every one knows there is a national shortage of mental health beds.

“We need to open more beds, not close them. As a result, community mental health services across the AHS are stretched to breaking point; a situation made worse by the fact some staffing levels are down by as much as 50 percent in some community mental health teams. This is also putting additional pressure on emergency departments as mental health patients are forced to rely on these facilities.”

Community nursing positions are also disappearing across the WSAHS and caseloads are almost impossible to manage. Most case workers now have between 40 and 60 patients on their books, but can only devote about eight days a month to them because of the extra time they must spend on crisis work.

“To make things even worse a significant shortage of cleaners is emerging across the WSAHS, which means hospital cleaning is being prioritised and a lot of areas, including staff toilets, are not getting done or done on time.

“The WSAHS really needs an urgent cash injection and it needs to start advertising for nurses immediately,” Mr Holmes said.

Next article – WA public servants rally to save public service

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